Apple Inc.

Other

James R Wilson

Christopher D Jones

Matthew S Rogers

Martin Melcher

David E Kingman

Clarisse Mazuir

Que Anh S Nguyen

Marta M Giachino

Christopher D Prest

John Raff

Ibuki Kamei

Peter F Masschelein

David A Pakula

Malcolm J Northcott

Mattia Pascolini

Yi Jiang

Siwen Yong

Lijun Zhang

Jiangfeng Wu

Derek C Scott

Christopher C Bartlow

Tyler S Bushnell

Matthew Emanuel Last

Joseph C Poole

Naoto Matsuyuki

Patrice Olivier Gautier

Arthur Yasheng Zhang

Ivan Krstic

Benjamin Shane Bustle

Ueyn L Block

Karthik Narayanan

Forrest C Wang

Ryan Joseph Garrone

Raghunandan K Pai

Gregory A Cohoon

Sudhakar N Mambakkam

Andi M Limarga

Jack E Graves

James William Vandyke

Bijumon Varkey

Khadijeh Bayat

Zhang Jia

David Glen Havskjold

Xianwei Zhao

Eric Daniel Friedman

Budhadipta Dan

Aidan R Doan

Katherine E Tong

Yoshitaka Matsui

Ove Lyngnes

Avery P Yuen

Amin M Younes

Tyler A Marshall

Anna V Mirabella

Vivek Venugopal

Prabhakaran Vaidyanathaswami

Ramarathnam Santhanagopal

Selvarajan Subramaniam

Glen A Rhodes

Kenichi Nakajima

Daisuke Nozu

Liliya Lyandres

Jacky G Ko

Alvin K Ng

Harry K Ng

Gary L Burkholder

Di Fan

Naomi Sugawara

Debra A Scorpio

Edward J Fleury, Jr

John Patrick Gates

A glass sheet having asymmetric chemical strengthening is disclosed and described. The examples described herein are directed to a cover glass for an electronic device and other glass components that may be used as enclosure elements or may form an enclosure. Within the glass component, localized compressive stress regions may be formed on opposite sides of the glass component, which may help arrest or redirect propagating cracks or defects in the glass. The opposing compressive stress regions may also help maintain the overall flatness of the component while increasing strength and/or impact resistance of the component.

Patterned asymmetric chemical strengthening

An electronic device can include a housing defining an aperture, and an electromagnetic radiation emitter and an electromagnetic radiation detector disposed in the housing. An optical component can be disposed in the aperture and can include a first region of a first material having a first index of refraction, the first region aligned with the electromagnetic radiation emitter, a second region of the first material, the second region aligned with the electromagnetic radiation detector, and a bulk region surrounding a periphery of the first region and a periphery of the second region, the bulk region including a second material having a second index of refraction that is lower than the first index of refraction.

Optical components for electronic devices

A ladder platform device for defining a work surface on a ladder includes a platform that has a central panel extending between a pair of outward panels. The central panel is positionable upon a topmost step of a ladder such that each of the pair of outward panels defines a work surface to support tools and other objects. Each of the pair of outward panels has a recess to retain the tools and other objects on the outward panels. A plurality of hooks is provided and each of the plurality of hooks is removably attachable to a respective one of the pair of outward panels to suspend a tool from the respective outward panel.

Ladder platform device

A system such as a vehicle may have adjustable structures such as adjustable windows. Adjustable windows may have adjustable layers such as adjustable tint layers, adjustable reflectivity layers, and adjustable haze layers. Adjustable window layers may be incorporated into a window with one or more transparent structural layers such as a pair of glass window layers. Adjustable components such as adjustable reflectivity layers, adjustable haze layers, and adjustable tint layers may be interposed between the pair of glass window layers. Fixed partially reflective mirrors, fixed tint layers, and/or fixed haze layers may be used in place of adjustable tint, haze, and reflectivity layers and/or may be incorporated into windows in addition to adjustable tint, haze, and reflectivity layers.

Systems with adjustable windows

A window may have a structural window layers such as an inner glass layer and an outer glass layer. The inner glass layer may be a layer of tempered glass. The outer glass layer may be a laminated glass layer. The inner and outer glass layers may be separated by an air gap. One or more reflection suppression layers such as antireflection layers and/or circular polarizers may be incorporated into the window to suppress reflections of light from within the interior region off of the window back towards the interior region. The antireflection layers may be formed on one or both surfaces of the inner glass and one or both surfaces of the outer glass. An electrically adjustable layer such as a guest-host liquid crystal light modulator layer or other electrically adjustable optical component layer may be interposed between the outer glass layer and the air gap.

Systems with suppressed window reflections

Light-control panels including layered optical components are described in this application. An example of a light-control panel includes a first glazing layer, a second glazing layer, a third glazing layer, and a fourth glazing layer, a first switchable component extending between the first glazing layer and the second glazing layer, a thermal coating extending between the first glazing layer and the first switchable component, and a second switchable component extending between the third glazing layer and the fourth glazing layer. The second glazing layer and the third glazing layer have an air gap therebetween, such that the air gap forms a space between the second glazing layer and the third glazing layer.

Light-control panel with layered optical components

An electronic device may include electrical components and other components mounted within an interior of a housing. The device may have a display on a front face of the device and may have a glass layer that forms part of the housing on a rear face of the device. The glass layer may be provided with regions having different appearances. The regions may be textured, may have coatings such as thin-film interference filter coatings formed from stacks of dielectric material having alternating indices of refraction, may have metal coating layers, and/or may have ink coating layers. Textured surfaces may be formed on thin glass layers and polymer films that are coupled to the glass layer. A glass layer may be formed from a pair of coupled glass layers. The coupled layers may have one or more recesses or other structures to visually distinguish different regions of the glass layer.

Patterned glass layers in electronic devices

Various embodiments relate to sensing defects associated with a window. Furthermore, various embodiments relate to performing image processing to produce a corrected image of a scene based at least partly on data corresponding to the detected defects. In some examples, one or more lighting modules may be used to illuminate the window to facilitate detection of the defects by one or more sensor devices.

Window defect sensing and image processing

Textured cover assemblies for electronic devices are disclosed. The textured cover assemblies may provide a combination of optical and tactile properties to the electronic devices. In some cases, a textured cover assembly may be provided over decorative coating.

Electronic device enclosure having a textured glass component

A sensing system that includes an optical,sensor and a sensing window. The optical sensor is configured to sense with electromagnetic radiation an environment. The sensing window is coupled to a structure, such that the electromagnetic radiation passes therethrough from the environment to the optical sensor to be sensed thereby. The sensing window includes an inner side that faces toward the optical sensor and an outer side that faces away from the optical sensor. The outer side includes a superhydrophobic surface that is in fluidic communication with the environment.

Sensing system with sensor window having a superhydrophobic surface

Light-control panels including layered optical components are described in this application. An example of a light-control panel includes first and second glazing layers and first and second switchable components extending between the first and second glazing layers. The light-control panel also includes a thermal coating extending between the first switchable component and the first glazing layer and a filter extending between the first and second switchable components.

Multiple electronic devices may be used together in a system. The electronic devices may use sensor measurements and other information to detect when an edge of a first electronic device is adjacent to an edge of a second electronic device. In response to detection of adjacency between the edges of the first and second devices, the devices may transition from an independent operating mode in which each device operates separately to a joint operating mode in which resources of the devices are shared. In the joint operating mode, images may extend across displays in the devices, speakers in the devices may be used to play different channels of an audio track, cameras and other sensors may be used in cooperation with each other, and other resources may be shared. Magnetic components may hold devices together in a variety of orientations.

System with multiple electronic devices

An electronic device may include electrical components and other components mounted within an interior of a housing. The device may have a display on a front face of the device and may have a glass layer that forms a housing wall on a rear face of the device. The glass housing wall may be provided with regions having different appearances. The regions may be textured, may have coatings such as thin-film interference filter coatings formed from stacks of dielectric material having alternating indices of refraction, may have metal coating layers, and/or may have ink coating layers. Textured surfaces, cavities, coatings, and other decoration may be embedded in glass structures that are joined with chemical bonds at diffusion-bonding interfaces.

Patterned bonded glass layers in electronic devices

A ceramic composite article includes a substrate including a matrix of ceramic material defining a network of interstitial regions and a transparent material occupying at least some of the interstitial regions of the substrate. The transparent material can have a melting point lower than a melting point of the ceramic material. The matrix of ceramic material can be formed by a 3D printing process.

Ceramic substrate with glass fill for decoration and housing materials

An electronic device including an optical component and an enclosure comprising a glass ceramic region is disclosed. The optical properties of the glass ceramic region and the positioning of the glass ceramic region with respect to the optical component can affect the performance of the optical component, the visual appearance of the optical component, or both.

Electronic device enclosure including a glass ceramic region

Growing community of inventors

Cupertino, CA, United States of America

James R Wilson